Bose is such an easy target (1 Viewer)

[Tekara]

hehe, my computer got the hand-me-down bose speakers after I upgraded my home theater. they do great as computer speakers though they are the older bose cubes that are about twice the size of the new ones. . . I can only image how poor the frequency response is on the new bose speakers.

 

[greggor]

My Audi also has the Bose speaker system. Total crap for such a refined automobile. The best factory car audio system I have heard (recently) was the infinity system that my 1998 Dodge Intrepid ES came with. To bad the car turned out to be such a big dissapointment.

Greg

 

[Leif Wall]

Best stock system I've heard was the Infinity setup in a Dodge Stratus RT. Just add a sub or two and you'd be good to go.

 

[ChristopherBer]

Best stock sound system is the Mark Levinson in Lexus cars.

 

[Dustin B]

Some of you might find this interesting.

http://www.hometheaterhifi.com/volum...ne-2-2003.html


PS- I've got a 93 Legend Coupe with the premium Bose package. The driver door speaker is crackling now and before it did the system's bass was bloated, it lacked midrange definition and there was a serious lacking in the highs.

 

[Chip E]

My mother has a Supercharged 2001 RegalGS V-6 with a Monsoon system... i gotta tellya's, lol, it sounds pretty good !

 

[ChrisWiggles]

You know... Dynaudio makes car speakers. If they're as good as some of the other stuff the make...

I dunno, lexus w/ levinson is nice, but I think I'll go with the Bugatti with the Burmester sound system. Ridiculus? Yes. But so is 1001 horsepower . And so is an SVS.

 

[DerrickW]

Sorry, but the Bose stereo in my Infiniti QX4 wasn't bad. It's now been ripped out and replaced with an excellent IASCA competition system. But for a while I ran the stock Bose system with a subwoofer added and the setup still beat most of the ghetto-boom cars and best buy specials. My friend has a QX4 with the stock stereo, so I still get to compare them now.

The Infinity "premium" stereo in our Dodge Grand Caravan is absolutely horrible, by any standards. It distorts at very low volumes, and we have the EQ set extremely low on bass to keep the "blatts" away.

 

[FrantzM]

Statement one : Bose products in general are BAD and expensive

Statement 2: Bose and MP3 are backward steps in the proper reproduction of music.

Statement 3: Dolby AC-3 could be added to the list but it is at least sometimes adequate.

It is scary to see how successful such products/technologies can be.

Frantz

 

[Russell _T]

http://www.intellexual.net/boseframes.html

 

[Brett DiMichele]

Derrick,

Wow that's the exact opposite of my opinion. I haven't
heard the Infinity system in the Caravan ( you won't get
me within feet of any minivan..) but I have listened to the
Infinity systems in most of Chryslers cars and have never
been as dissapointed in them as I have with every bose car
setup I have ever heard.

*Shrugs* The 3" Paper Bose Tweeters in my Corvette are just
so damn sexy.. I think a Wizzer Cone would make more HF
noise than thier supposed tweeters.

Mark Levinson would be a nice option for in the Vette but
honestly GM doesn't care... It's all about what's the
cheapest for them to install so they can make higher profit
margins. They most likely pay Bose $10.00 for all of the
speakers they use.

 

[Adam Bluhm]

Another thread is closed but was leading in a particular direction. This isn't car audio related..

Someone was asking about bose and wondering why is was not highly sought after from people on this forum (or anyone with general audio knowledge).

The one thing I cannot believe it Bose's pricing. ~$2400 will get you five speakers, a 'sub', a dvd player and receiver. It's small. It's easy to operate. It's better sound through research, right?

Well, the closest I've come to listening to Bose is at Sams Club and Circuit City. They have their own little recordings and what not. I'm never able to listen to my own stuff in them. The thing that miffs me is..

I purchased a Denon 1802 receiver ($410), four JBL S26II's, an S Center and a PB10 (~$700) and miscellaneous cables (~$150), a Marantz 5 disc changer (~$190), a Sony TV to boot ($460) and hopefully soon a Panasonic XP30 (~$200). Shipping on the speaker and sub was free, but lets throw in an additional $100 for random shipping/charges.

First of all, I personally think that the setup is awesome for a modest HT. It's nothing spectacular, but it didn't run me five figures either.

When I first heard the Bose setup in Sams Club, I couldn't believe that I could barely hear any dialogue. Again, I was miffed! I called my eldest brother over who never really get a chance to listen to anything
too high end, and said, "Hey.. check this out. Listen to this." He paused for a second, looked at the screen and then glanced down as if to give his entire attention to listening. He then looked at me with a cockeyed face and said, "This sucks." He walked away.

If you knew him.. hehe, well it's funny. But my point..

Can a $2400 dollar Bose system beat buying seperate parts (mine totalled $2210 with tv)? I cannot believe the audio difference. It's staggering.

My brother was home during Christmas and we watched LOTR on my humble system (hopefully one day I can brag about mine ). After the movie, he told me that it was about the 20th time he's seen it, and he's never been more into it than with my system. He said it was just an awesome experience and was comparing it to an actual theater experience.

I think I'm due for an SVSub soon. That's currently the achilles heal of my HT.

 

[DerrickW]

Well, as far as the Bose system in my Infiniti goes, I've had the advantage of ripping it out. So I've seen all the components. Bose has a separate amp in the rear of the vehicle that has a genuine heat sink, around 10x8". The rear speakers are just paper 6.5 woofers with no tweeter at all. But the fronts have a 6.5 woofer in the door and a separate dome tweeter in the A pillar. The front door woofers have their own amp in the door. Most of the gear is made by Clarion.

Like every factory system I've heard, this suffers in the imaging department. Without a somewhat obtrusive aiming or kickpanel setup, the tweeters are just in a non-optimal position and firing direction. So no, I wouldn't dare pull up to the judging lanes at an IASCA competition with the Bose stereo (though I've seen people do it!). The system also doesn't have any EQ abilities, which is very important in competitions because of the RTA score. But the system was flat enough not to bother me, and I'm used to having it done right. The original system also rolled off on the low end, requiring me to add subs to be happy. One of the major reasons I made the upgrade was to add multimedia, and interfacing with the Bose equipment is a b!tch (1 ohm speakers and the amps have non-defeatable crossovers). But this beats the fancy Infinty, Lexus, etc stereos I've heard because it NEVER distorted. It got loud, it played smoothly, it never distorted, and the frequency response wasn't annoying enough to stick out. This is probably good enough for more than 98% of people out there. And after adding a true subwoofer, I'd bet that 99.5% would be totally happy.

So am I saying Bose is the best? No way. The components and marketing at Bose for HT cubes makes me laugh at the price. I will try to prevent my friends from buying their gear without listening to other equipment. But to bash everything Bose has ever done is wrong.

 

[Grant B]

I actually emailed Bose on their award because it annoyed me so much.
They came back with more questions (On what day and at what time did you see this commerical..... the one you play all the time you idiot)
On Bose defence ( I never thought I would say that), they seem to work forever with few or no problems. Face it, they are designed for people who worry if there radio color clashed with their drapes. The same people who has a vcr with a blinking clock are the same people who buys Bose. Very simmple with few buttons and no connections. Those people dont stand up for Bose because they cant figure out how to turn on a computer.
I dont mean this as a put down for these people actually. I was doing a service call on a Dish system and ran into the sweetest little old lady. Easiest fix ever, One reciever was off and the other was on the wrong channel.
I felt so sorry for her and tried to make her feel better by saying it's hard to deal with something that was not around when you were a kid.
She agreed and said radio was new when she was a child.... wow, never thought about that one.
I wish Bose or someone made a video system for these people that was foolproof like a Bose radio.
Yeah it's overpriced and bad sounding but when you need hearing aides and cant see the little buttons it's a godsend.
They are not meant for people who hang out on forums and discus the merits of optical versus coaxial audio cables or such....too bad we cant bypass their annoying commericals

Grant

 

[DerrickW]

Grant,
Having a simple system is of course mandatory for many people, including older folks. But the complaint against Bose HT systems is the PRICE for such low performance, and the claim that this is audiophile equipment. If they want to market the gear as simple and cheap, go for it.

 

[ChrisWiggles]

Grant's statment is right on. As much as i hate Bose, they have one thing going for them(other than their amazing marketing campaign, we all need to bow down to that...), and that's their simplicity. There are a lot(all?) of people out there who are totally ignorant about how much their Bose system sucks, but you give them a receiver, and 6.1 and a mix of improperly flagged DVDs, and RE-EQ options, and setup, and time delay, and video calibration, and black bars, and they're gonna have trouble just getting the damn system on, unless they pay WAYYYY more than the Bose system to have a high-end install done for them. Now, there ARE brands out there that have some very nice, and simple products. Dare I say the very high end is painfully simple, but I can't see a little old lady shelling out for a meridian system or the like.

Home theater is a very complicated world. Even stereo is very daunting for most people, which is why I recommend NAD to a lot of people mainly because their products are very simple, and obvious to operate. Very few buttons. Great sound too, but they'd never notice. A system that gets used frequently because it is usable is worth INFINITELY more than the world's best HT that takes a PHD (or nuts like us) to operate correctly that stays off.

Think about all the ridiculously stupid things Bose does, like building the antenna into the power cord. That's not gonna give someone like me the best reception, I don't have outlets in the ceiling. But you take ALL those little simplifications, and pretty soon you have one albeit crappy, but VERY simple product. It's plug-n-play, and for LOTS of people that's fine.

 

[Adam Bluhm]

Maybe they need a new slogan.

Ease through research

 

[Javier_Huerta]

Bose sucks, I wonder why Audi and Cadillac use their sound systems in their cars.

Ask the man who owned one - myself.

It had no highs, nice lows that made the "subwoofer" (two 4" paper cone drivers on a plastic box - ROFLMAO) go "baaarp" every two minutes, completely different soundstaging on the front and back seats, and a compressed sound to it. I'd say my no-name car stereo (on a Renault Clio) sounds a lot better (more detailed and dynamic) than the Bose system my Audi A3 had.

Don't believe the hype, either... I sometimes feel my Clio (Sport) is a better car than the Audi it replaced (during 20,000 kms of ownership, the clutch blew not once, not twice, but THREE times). A brand name sometimes doesn't mean a thing.

 

[Brett DiMichele]

Okay so lets see... Rather than educate the ignorant we
should just make "ignorant orientated" products. In other
words "Stoopid People Stuff".

Yeah that's the problem today no one can even remember how
to wiper thier own azz.. I thank god I know how to wire a
house, rebuild my engine, hang sheet rock, plaster, make a
new deck.. If I had to depend on someone to come wire my
home theater that seems to change on a weekly basis..

Fuh Get About It!

 

[Myo K]

that 3-2-1 system thing they sell is a joke, i recall having a sales rep demo it for me, and as we watched an intro to a movie, he darts his eyes to me and asks, did you hear that?

i was "what"?

and he replies "the surround effect"

i was "uh.. no, i hear stereo"

then i looked at the non-progressive dvd player and the 1000 dollar price tag, and i began to laugh.

that system is so incredibly rediculous, i cant possibly understand how someone can pay 1000 dollars for that set and truely feel content with his/her money well spent.